well with the new set out and the new season starting in just a few weeks,i was wondering what everyones predictions for the top characters were. im thinkin:

hugo

jivatma

donavan

chun li

bishimon

alex

ibuki

remy and a few random unkown sleepers.

I gotta disagree with...

Jivatma
Ibuki (she loses Suzaku)
and Remy.

the rest I agree with and id add...

Ralf (maybe)
Basara
Terry (from the old set)
Guile
and Kazuki *Cough Biased Cough*

In no particular order:

J.Talbain- Until he gets b%$^ed anyways

Promo Bishamon- He art the wall of defense.

Hugo- 6/40 with access to all of All's and Death's control is too good.

Promo Alex- It's Alex, c'mon.

Basara- There's card draw in them their symbols. Keep his hand up and you win.

Any 6-7 HS All/Order character that can run Feline Spike- Nuff said

Promo Guy- Order control into three Hozanto's usually means dead.

Felcia- First turn Spikes are funny

Sleepers:

Promo Balrog- Staple the new 'Rog and throw seven punches without making a control check

Elena- Absurd Strength is gone, and she has access to a Year's Difference. 32 damage throws anyone?

Talim- If they reprint some form of Deceptive Look, watch out.

Nakaruru- Spikes that commit AND blow stuff up? Nifty

I'll say this much vis-a-vis the new characters...

The following will see play:

Balrog
Basara
Billy
Chun-Li
Elena
Hugo
Nakoruru
Remy
Sogetsu

Yezzir

Andrew Olexa: CC Hack+Built in momentum generation. Access to Evil and Feline Spike.

Akuma: CC Hack+Mass tappage, access to Tiger Fury and other solid finishers.

Victor: His asset makes him absolutely broken.

Alex: It's Alex...

Talbain: It's Talbain...

Promo Guy: Huge Sleeper for Order. Built in momentum generation lets you cut Lord of the Makai which let's you fill those 4 slots with even more Order brokeness.

Hugo: We'll see

Sogetsu: See Hugo

Ralf: Another huge sleeper, the ability to completely shut down any sort of momentum generation for a pitiful amount of life (oh hey Feline Spike/Defender loops) is huge.

Balrog: Got paid ya'll.

Jivatma: An absolute tank of a character and the best discarder on the planet. Will for the Fight hurts but I don't think that'll be enough to stop him.

New promo ken as well, man. Talk about mass tapage...

Alex - Proven track record

Olexa - Strong Symbols and good hax plus mostly free momentum gen.

Talbain - Till they ban him at least, for obvious reasons.

Nagase - 7/22 with 2 good abilities that all play well with her symbols support. A thinking mans character I would say

Kyoshiro - Replacing Ukyo for t2 aggro draw.

Elena - It's like Twelve but with good support cards.

Chun--li - Disruptive aggro plus a suite of strong attacks and finishers.

Ibuki - Even losing Suzie Q shes got 2 really strong abilities, shes just going to have to use a different attack base. Perhaps we will actually see her run Yoroi Doshi?

Aside from that theres alot of decent characters to skirt diversity with that play with semi redundant abilities to thier stronger counter parts. Leona is absolutley a strong substution for Kyoshiro (Play her, dont judge on Vit alone), Akuma has his own bag of tricks over Olexa, Hugo can be run very close in playstyle to Alex. I do feel like aggro is coming back, with talbain being like the sole "combo" build in the current environment and very few Control characters really being able to deal with first turn spikes in any productive way.

This list of predictions of course is based on nothign getting banned, and honestly Lord of the Makai and Talbain are really starting to push it...

To me the following are going to be played A LOT.

R.Mika: With her R opponents now need to think " if I have enough damage reduction will I survive on MY turn.

Chun-Li: Yeah when it was said that she will be tournament playable they weren't kiddin **** it man I attack you when you play a second card.

Talbain: Yeah I have to agree with protoaddict he's gonna get the banstick soon and I don't want that but it's the truth.

Elena: um, the ability to give a multiple ALMOST ANYTHING KEYWORD EXCEPT THROW and SOC will be played with her almost like a staple in the deck.

Hugo:Built of of Earth he a freakin tank with card draw.

Sogetsu: Right now he's kinda ok

Kasuki: See his brother.

Remy: he's a late game killer.

Basara. As far as it goes HE'S GOING TO BE PLAYED IN THE VOID PATCH TOURNAMENTS A FREAKIN LOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! but after that it's a toss-up.

Well that's my take and didn't I make a thread on this.

Well since you guys mentioned most I just want to put Zi Mei into the equation .

Hmm.. I'm thinking flexibility will be the key. The decks that can both hang with the aggro monsters and fight back agains the hard lock control. Basically the decks with very few "bad" matchups:

Zi Mei - Board control plus damage pump.

Chun Li - Flexibility and tempo control.

Talbain - Fantastic matchups vs Order lockout plus the ability to force the opponent to play their game differently.

:Rikuo: - Very strong meta to the unblockable, attack-heavy metagame with two very varied and widely used abilities. All that AND a 6/26 ratio!

Kyoshiro/Gill/Sophitia -The Order hax/control/lockout deck. All three characters have draw/hand advantage in different ways, not sure yet which of them will be most effective

Akuma/Zhao Daiyu - one of these two will front Evil CC control/hax. Dependant on kill tech and which can survive damage turns better

Andrew Olexa - For all the reasons already stated; access to Evil CC control/hax, momentum gen and Spike.

Alex - One of the best ability combinations in the game, ridiculous life/vitality ratio and (unlikle Ibuki), not impeded by reliance on Suzaku.

Sakura - Same concept as Alex, plus access to similar cards. Like Alex, not one particular strategy or deck stands out, just a very solid, card-advantage based character with a proven track record.

let me just throw in a couple charecters that have not been mentioned.

Promo Blanka: if this card is ever printed his momentum gain is ridicoulous.

Lizardman: his ability to full block anything is amazing.

nigh terror: great lockdown charcter.

GEESE!!!!! chaos/evil hacks

I just felt the need to point this out...

R. Mika has Water, as well as the ability to play a Reversal before your opponent's attack resolves (while committed, no less). As such, R. Mika is quite possibly the best (or one of) Water character because not only can she sport this game's best attack, but she can play it quite possibly before she dies.

Great sleeper character : Juni. Anti-aggro and really easy ability to loop spiral arrow on her card makes your opponent think 2 times before dealing chip damage.

Masterom2000 said:

My boy has one and I will put my word on it when I say that her off of order will lock you down.

trust me when I say that Juni isnt a sleeper. I think she is definitely on every top player's radar right now.

I gotta disagree with Hugo... Hugo is awful, he is a 4/40, do not trick yourself into thinking he is a 6/40, turn 1 he isn't, and with the anti-draw tech going around, you might get 6HS for a turn. But he is a 4/40.

Yeah true but run him off earth and then that 6hs comes in to play

I agree that Hugo is hyped up a little, but still, he is 40 Vit, with built in Draw. All you need is 2 or 3 turns of extra card draw from his effect, plus whatever you get from other effects. The other ability takes over for the rest of the game.

I think Guile might actually be a sleeper. His ability to pull cards from the staging area will be nicely utilized. Also, Gaira might be a good sleeper as well with most of his stuff being able to turn stall decks on their heads. Sogetsu might also be a top character considering that he's got the top two symbols for control and discard and the ability to dig like a funeral home worker!

hugo is good

alex

donavan

morrigan

felisha

Granted i'm fairly new to this awesome game but here's my input on top 8 charcter predictions:

J.Talbain- yeah, you know it. He needs banning/ serious errata. Speaking of which where's the banned list document anyhow?

Hanzo- Mah boi, least until they do something about the Hanzokixk deck he WILL top 8. his kill condition is so easy to pull in block 3, mental but if they do screw with the deck i'm totally leaving ~_~

Andrew olexa- just needs someone to break him in honesty, he has the pitchfork, chaos and access to spike alongside amazing disruption, not to even mention the actual deck! ( that, I believe could well be the reason as to why these three are winners because teh cahrcter ALONE will hold up any deck.) My only concern is you need to either speed build or lockout the opponent with olexa otheriwse he could be a wee bit to slow is all.

Akuma/Zhao daiyu- A rough guess here. They each front haxxzor and have tehy're bag of tricks, zhao has chaos as well and pitchfork to use gorgeous team and whatnot, If she ever actually becomes LEGAL steve you bloody twonk.

*insert an order/chaos charcter with decnt abilities and tempo here*- Defender/makai kill.

(special shoutouts to the defender combo) ***Alba***, ***Victor***- just because they have AMAZING charcter only stuff and decent abilities to boot, don't underestimate alba!

***Alex***- proven track record, add pigeon games to the equation and he gets WHACKY.

****Sakura****- see above, also has gorgeous team.

Now for people who COULD top 8 in my opinion but would require soem good skills and deckmaking.

**Hugo**- not amzing by himself but y'know

*Jivatma*- Has access to stars aligned, tank charcter and yeah awesome discard.

(From domination) Ryu- Don't count this boy out! So long as makai stays with us this guy can mean serious recusrion, i'm just happy that Stay down isn't block 3 so that my friends Ryu infinite loop deck wont' be legal.

NEW promo Ken- we've already dissected this guy.

NEW balrog. i'll be the one to top 8 this badboy.

oh and Zi mei.

That's it for now but i'll change my mind later.

P.S if LOTM gets banned I quit UFS.

Hanzo said:

1. Domination Ryu is so underrated =(

2. Promo Ken is awesome.

3. You'll have to beat me to the punch (wow, THAT one was actually an unintentional pun). I plan on playing the 'rog as well. I wanna get PAID!

Hugo definately. But I don't see single symbol Hugo's doing much more than drawing out games.

Tri symbol Hugo is definately where its at. Between Battle Prowess, Blood Runs True, Chesters, Grim Stride, Charismatic, the rest of M.Bison's new support, ect ect ect, the man is simply a wall of control. Toss in the wonders of Fortune and Glory and Hugo beats you into the ground on his own time. Yes there is anti draw...but the man has more tools available to him than you can shake a stick at.

I think there's going to b a very large number of competetive characters in the meta now, especially with the release of this new set. There are clear cut Aggro characters like Elena:, clear cut control characters like Basara: and the gray areas inbetween like Remy. In my opinion, I think there's one hell of a list to come out of this.

I was on both sides of the fence about the Talbain discussion, but this new set, particularly Illegal Maneuvers has pushed me on the banwagon, I'm afraid. The fact that Talbain needs less and less fondations to actually function well is beginning to get scary. And to be honest, it's not as though the other legal Talbain is crap. He's actually very good in the right hands, and if I remember rght, The Beast Within is Block 3 legal, so it isn't as if Talbain fans would be majorly losing out. I'm eagerly awaiting the 2008 State Of The Game to see Talbains' (and a good few other cards') fate.

Hugo, while slightly overrated, is extremely powerful, needless to say, and is someone you need to be careful of. I dread to think the kind of things he can do with cards like Circuit Scrapper, High Plasma Beam, even Domination. Luckily, he isn't as adept as other characters for using cards like The Ways Of Punishment, for his lack of hand holds him back from using such things efficiently.

Order and Chaos seem to be the flavours of the day at the moment, and there are a lot of characters who cater to these two resources, and one thing I do like is the variation between them. Many people have stated Donovan, Seong Mi-Na, Sophitia etc etc, already, but there are a few hidden gems which I've noticed not being mentioned. Yumeji, for one, is very powerful off either or both Order and Chaos. Such things were demonstrated at one point, but Addes Syndicate always held him/her back. S/he works very well with cards like The Price Of Foolishness and Eternal Rule, and his/her part of Chobi Jishi is enough to make you want to run him/her alone. B. Jenet clearly isn't quite as powerful as Donovan or Sophitia, but has amazing resources (Death on top of both Chaos and Order) and has become a lot more powerful now that blocking has become more prevalent with set 11. Chain Of Command is all you really need to look at to prove that.

With Void becoming much more powerful, I think a lot of characters that have it but were overlooked (or at least played off Void) will rise. Soiree is the first character that comes to mind. Combinations of Angel Of Evening and Mind Over Matter. Reusing Living Shadow, Big Dreams and having the throws to be able to trigger Soiree himself is not pleasant. Taki, Ryu, Ken, Sakura, and Akuma's beginning to frighten me with his access to CC hax in a resource that doesn't normally have it.

You see, even with the few examples I've given, there's a hell of a lot of different characters that will see a lot of play within the current meta, and thats the way it should be